News (Updated August 13,
2005)
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The Chinese government has launched the first of six HIV/AIDS training centers aimed at educating medical staff on how to treat people with HIV/AIDS, according to the Chinese Ministry of Public Health, the Xinhua News Agency reports.
The first center is located in the southwestern province of Yunnan, and the five others will be located in Beijing, Shanghai and the provinces of Liaoning, Hubei and Sichuan. The centers will provide professional training to five to six of the surrounding provinces and regions to accomplish more effective results in consultation, diagnosis, treatment and assistance in HIV/AIDS prevention and control.
The primary focus of the new Yunnan province center -- which is based in the Yunnan Center for Disease Control and Prevention and will serve Guizhou, Hainan and Guangdong provinces and the region of Guanxi Zhuang -- is HIV prevention and early intervention through programs that address containment of HIV/AIDS among injection drug users and commercial sex workers by encouraging the use of sterilized needles and condoms. Yunnan CDC Director Lu Lin said, "Yunnan is one of the regions that suffer most from the disease, and the HIV/AIDS situation here is serious now." The Chinese government in 2004 earmarked about $3.6 million for the establishment of traditional Chinese medicine treatment centers for HIV/AIDS patients, according to the Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine (Xinhua News Agency, 8/11).
By Zhang Feng (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-08-11 06:08
Official figures show 390,418 people contracted serious infectious diseases on the Chinese mainland during July, the Ministry of Health revealed yesterday.
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| A hygienic inspector checks the water quality of a swimming pool in Anhui, East China's Hefei Province. The picture is taken on July, 24, 2005. [newsphoto] |
Under Chinese law, reports on the situation regarding 27 serious diseases, including HIV/AIDS, anthrax, rabies, TB and hepatitis should be made public every month.
The anthrax outbreak, which has so far infected 114 people, affects Southwest China's Guizhou Province, Northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, and Northeast China's Liaoning and Jilin provinces.
According to the Ministry of Health, the three patients who died had all been in close contact with infected horses or cows.
From July 29 to August 5, a total of 12 anthrax cases, including one death, had been identified in two villages in Liaoning Province.
These localized outbreaks are now under control, according to a statement released by the Liaoning health authority.
Infections from livestock to humans are relatively common and cases appear in China every year, mainly in Qinghai, Yunnan, Gansu and Liaoning provinces and Xinjiang Uygur and Tibet autonomous regions, the ministry said.
There are three forms of anthrax which can affect the skin, digestive system or lungs
Experts warned the disease can appear just like a cold, and is curable if treated early.
The pig-borne Streptococcus suis disease which has so far killed 39 people in Southwest China's Sichuan Province, is not included in the list of 27 diseases which must be reported by the ministry.
When compared to the total number of reported infectious diseases, Streptococcus suis is not a very serious threat in China, said Liu Xia, an official from the Communicable Disease Prevention and Management Division of the Ministry of Health.
Of the 27 kinds of infectious diseases which are reported, there were no reported infections or deaths from polio, SARS, avian influenza, or diphtheria.
The top five killers were TB, rabies, HIV/AIDS, Type-B encephalitis, and hepatitis B.
They killed 221, 209, 107, 57 and 51 people respectively, accounting for at least 85 per cent of the total deaths.
By MARGIE MASON, AP Medical WriterSun Aug 7, 9:53 AM ET
The head of the World Health Organization and Thailand's prime minister on Sunday launched a global health conference in Bangkok, urging unconventional, pre-emptive steps in areas from tobacco use to nutrition to battle human illness.
WHO Director General Lee Jong-wook held up the example of the U.S. state of California's tobacco control program, saying it had helped reduce lung cancer by 14 percent over 10 years — while the rest of the country saw only a 3 percent decline.
"There are never enough human and financial resources for health promotion, but there are always new approaches and methods to increase our options," Lee said.
Speaking Sunday at the Sixth Global Conference on Health Promotion, Lee said several countries have set up unconventional health strategies since the first such forum in Ottawa, Canada in 1986.
Developing countries are among them. Thailand, which is co-sponsoring the conference with WHO, has worked to change its approach from "repairing" health to "building health" by offering cheap, universal health care nationwide, said Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Thailand in 2001 started the "30 baht" insurance plan, under which patients who are not covered by other health plans pay 30 baht — about 75 U.S. cents (euro.61) each time they visit a doctor. The program now covers about 47 million of Thailand's 65 million people.
"That means that millions of Thais who would never dare go to the hospital are now able to benefit from essential medical treatment," Thaksin said at the conference opening. "We would much prefer for our people to see the doctor regularly rather than to wait for major illness."
The success of Thailand's decade-old nationwide campaign to help staunch the spread of AIDS has become a model for other countries in the Asia-Pacific region, which has the second-largest number of people living with the AIDS-causing virus HIV after sub-Saharan Africa.
Thailand also is promoting exercise to combat a rise in the number overweight and obese people.
"If you have a chance to tour around Bangkok, you will see for yourselves a variety of exercise activities in different places," Thaksin said. "Despite their hectic city life, Bangkokians are making healthy physical activities a familiar part of their daily routines."
Delegates at this year's weeklong Bangkok health conference are expected to launch a new charter, building on parts of the one from the first conference. The new plan is expected to calls for gender equality in health promotion, along with more participation by both policy makers and the public.
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Not everybody is impressed by the nationwide campaign for the use of condoms to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Among those who are apparently opposed to the campaign is State Minister for Youth and Sports Affairs Adhyaksa Dault.
"I don't agree that we should promote condom use as a way of preventing HIV/AIDS. That's not the way. It's more about how to steer our young people away from promiscuity," Adhyaksa said after opening an event to mark National Youth Day at his office on Friday.
He said that his opposition to the condom campaign was personal in nature, and he accepted that it had been internationally approved as a HIV/AIDS harm reduction measure.
"If that has been accepted as the international standard, so be it. But we have our own ways, including upholding our religious principles and our nationalist principles," he said as quoted by Antara.
Adhyaksa hails from the Muslim-based Prosperous Justice Party, which touts Islamic morality as one of its main platforms. The party has persistently campaigned against corruption and what it considers to be indecency, which it says could lead to Indonesia becoming a "failed nation".
The government has incorporated the use of condoms into its national movement against HIV/AIDS, besides the provision of sterile needles -- something that has also sparked controversy. Both unsafe sex and needle-sharing play a major role in spreading HIV infection worldwide.
As of June this year, the government had definitively recorded 7,098 people living with HIV/AIDS, 40 percent of them aged between 10 and 24 years old. However, the government also estimates that up to 150,000 people could be living with HIV/AIDS, while some activists say the figure could reach one million.
The World Health Organization said in its latest report that between 20 and 30 percent of young people engage pre-marital sex globally.
Adhyaksa said he could not prevent anyone, including non-governmental organizations, from campaigning for the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV.
"Moral decadence is spreading. Therefore, we should not encourage them to use condoms. Anyway, not all condoms are leakproof," Adhyaksa said.
MAPUTO
(Reuters) - Mozambique revised up its official HIV infection rate to 16.2
percent of the adult population from about 14 percent, the health minister said
on Wednesday.
Mozambique has been less affected by the killer disease than many of its southern African neighbors, in part because it was isolated by a 16-year civil war that lasted until 1992.
The war's end ushered in rapid economic growth, but growing cross-border trade and migration also sent HIV/AIDS infection levels soaring, with the areas lining the roads to Zimbabwe and South Africa proving particularly susceptible.
"The figures show that unfortunately the HIV epidemic in the country is still growing," Health Minister Paulo Ivo Garrido told a news conference in the capital Maputo.
"These numbers must be a motive for us all."
The new figures, showing an increase of just over two percentage points from a 2002 survey, were collected across Mozambique during 2004 based on testing of pregnant women, although some other groups were also surveyed.
The survey showed the disease was spreading fastest in Maputo and in Gaza province, home to many migrant workers from South Africa, which has the world's highest HIV/AIDS caseload.
In the most seriously affected province -- Sofala, which contains Mozambique's second port Beira and is the main export route from Zimbabwe -- the infection rate remained constant from the previous survey at 26.5 percent.
That rate is much closer to other southern African countries such as Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Swaziland, which have infection rates of around 30 percent or more.
"HIV/AIDS is a bit 'younger' here than in neighboring countries because it was isolated during the war," said Michael Klaus, spokesman for United Nations children's fund UNICEF in Mozambique.
"But it's rising particularly fast in the border areas, like Gaza, which has a lot of South African mineworkers."
The disease has hit poor families hardest, using up valuable resources and leaving them less able to weather food shortages and attacks from other diseases such as malaria.
Of some 100,000 AIDS deaths a year in the country, UNICEF says 20 percent are among children.
Many Mozambicans still refuse to admit they have HIV.
Even at the handful of clinics dispensing life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs many patients deny their condition, or refuse to be tested until they become seriously ill.
"Most of them are in the later stages when they come here," Spanish pharmacist Pilar Jorda told Reuters in an AIDS clinic in the southern city of Chokwe. "Sometimes they come here and in three or four days they are dead."
In response, the Appleseed Center has issued a report with specific recommendations to educate the public, prevent the spread of the disease and care for those infected, the report said.
Health experts dedicated to stopping the spread of HIV and assisting those infected with the virus said they hope the report will prompt the city to respond to the escalating number of cases. As News4's Doreen Gentzler reported, several health advocates weren't surprised by the report's findings, but they do hope it will lead to changes that will save lives.
"It's a clarion call for people in the city to deal with the epidemic in a new way," said Kim Mills, with the District's Whitman Walker Clinic.
Mills is excited to see the new report titled, "HIV AIDS In The Nation's Capital."
Mills strongly supports the report's recommendation calling for the city to do a better job in tracking HIV and AIDS cases.
"It will make our job a little bit easier to do. We'll understand where the epidemic is and where it's moving if we get more accurate numbers," Mills said.
The number of people in the District infected with HIV and AIDS has
continued to climb in recent years and public health experts Cite the
following reasons for the disturbing trend:
Experts are also concerned about members of the public who aren't aware they've been infected.
"If you look at the report, we don't know how many people who are walking around with the infection, who don't know it." Mills said.
"If you don't know what your HIV status is and the risk behavior, you are spreading the virus," she added.
Meanwhile, as a first line provider, Wells said she's seeing a growing number of young people who aren't getting the message about the importance of using condoms.
It's a problem she'd like to see addressed by the city.
"D.C. is a scary place in terms of HIV right now. We know better and we know what to do to at least stem the spread of HIV and we're not doing it and the city needs to help us," she said.
The Appleseed Center plans to hold future meetings with city and community groups to address strategies for dealing with HIV and AIDS in the District.
Copyright 2005 by nbc4.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Two state-run hospitals in India have been accused of
turning away patients who are HIV positive.
One man was refused surgery for a painful abscess in his stomach after doctors
learned of his HIV status. In an earlier case last month, a pregnant woman was
also denied treatment on the same grounds.
India has the world’s second highest rate of HIV, with more then 5 million
cases. Both hospitals refusing treatment are in the same province, where the
local State AIDS Control Society are threatening legal action if no adequate
explanation is given by the hospitals.